Fauci Praises Israeli Researchers for Covid Work

Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM – Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical advisor, has praised an Israeli research team for its contribution to the scientific response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter to the researchers, Dr. Fauci expressed his appreciation for “the critical contributions you and your team have made during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Your research has been incredibly important to the fast-paced pandemic response and has supported public health efforts around the world. I recognize that developing the tools and data needed to enable a rapid response to COVID-19 has required a strong work ethic and resilience, and that you have made incredible progress despite many unprecedented obstacles.”

Prof. Tomer Hertz and his students Liel Cohen-Lavi, Sinai Sacharen, Eilay Koren and Anat Burkovitz, are a part of the SARS-CoV-2 Assessment of Viral Evolution (SAVE) program at the NIAID, a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Prof. Hertz explained: “My students and I have been part of the early detection group that analyzes the viral sequence data. We have been generating monthly rankings of SARS-CoV-2 variants based on predictions of their escape from antibodies for the group for the last eight months. We are also part of the T-cell working group and have done lots of analysis on T-cell mediated immune pressure on the virus for this project,” said Hertz, who is a member of the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev and the Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The SAVE program is composed of an international team of scientists with expertise in virology, immunology, vaccinology, structural biology, bioinformatics, and viral genetics.